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“Michael, you showed me that I can love, which is still a lot to process, but why did you do it?”
“I wanted to show you that you could and-”
“No, Michael. Don’t give me that answer because you and I both know that isn’t the truth. Why on Earth, would you, an actual , literal demon have me ‘relive’ a powerful and emotional event? What made you change?” Her eyes soften. “Who made you change?”
Michael looks away from her with a sigh. He fiddles with the Janet modified iPad-esque device, carefully selecting and queuing up a series of moments from the last reboot, 802. He gestures to Eleanor to put the earbuds back in her ears and he transports her to when he tells the four humans that he needs a new dance crew. That fades out and Eleanor sees herself pushing back on allowing Michael to join the team since she doesn’t trust him. Little by little, clip by clip, the process of how Eleanor went from wanting to hit Michael as hard as she could with her fists (something Michael remembers her doing in reboots 99, 106, and 788, among others), to Eleanor growing fond of Michael, to Eleanor actually trusting him when no one else trusted him after the humans thinks he's turned against them after Shawn (who Eleanor assumes is Michael’s ‘boss’) gives Michael a pin that seems very important to Michael, given he tells Shawn that it was everything he’s ever wanted.
“You, Eleanor.” Michael touches Eleanor's shoulder and looks into her eyes. “You helped me change. You were the only one who pulled me out of my extensional crisis, and you were the only one who called me out when I was ‘pulling an Eleanor’ during my first formal lesson that I had with you all. With Team Cockroach.”
“Why didn’t you tell me I had such a profound impact on you, bud?” Eleanor whispers, setting down the earbuds.
“It isn’t important.” Michael removes his hand from her shoulder and looks away from her, afraid to make eye contact with her.
“It isn’t important?” Eleanor scoffs. “Michael, are you nuts? You recognized that you needed to change and you made progress to become a better...demon. I literally just saw the moment when you were so devastated after I said “I’m not mad, just disappointed,” to you when that balloon that Janet made was fake. You literally came over to shoot the shit with me because you wanted to talk about ethics and you wanted my advice, my help-”
“Eleanor…..” Michael sighs and crosses his arms.
“No, I’m not done! Michael, you’re the reason why Chidi, Tahani, Jason, and myself are alive and on Earth again. You told us that yourself! You probably saw all of us on Earth before we died, the first time, I guess, seeing which humans would be the best subjects for your experiment and then, 300 years later, you probably watched all of us on Earth again to see if your little game, your risk, was working.” She stills for a minute, and looks up at him. “You….you’re the reason why I watched Chidi’s stupid lecture series. You came down to Earth and you planted a seed that you somehow knew was going to work. How did you know I was going to be at that bar, anyways?”
Michael runs a hand through his hair. “I made that bar for you, Eleanor.”
“But...how? You don’t have your powers when you're on Earth, right?”
“Correct. But, I bribed the doorman in order to allow my powers to stick around for only a minute; that was enough time for me to bring everything into existence.”
“You still haven’t answered my question: how did you know I was going to be at that bar at that time and on my birthday?”
“I know you’re a fan of horrible puns, so I knew you would be drawn to it, and as far as when, Jeremy Bearimy, Eleanor.”
“Is that..is that why all of the names of the restaurants in your neighborhood had horrible puns? For me?”
“Yes, Eleanor.” Michael gives her a small smile. “In fact, there’s very little about my neighborhood that wasn’t for you.”
Eleanor swallows his words down like rich, melted chocolate. She felt oddly warm, knowing that an immortal entity, and a demon, at that, created something for her. “When I first met you in this timeline at the bar, you told me about your friend who was a little rough around the edges but was good when they tried: I'm...her, right?”
“Exactly, Eleanor. Exactly.”
“But, how did you know that seed, that line you said would actually work? Like who cares about what we owe to each other? I owe people nothing cause they suck.I’ve only ever cared about number one, and that’s it.”
“Eleanor, I know everything about you.” Eleanor’s eyes widen. “I know every single fear, every single dream, hope, desire, crush, lust, anxiety, obsession, and event that shaped your life. I spent 300 years trying to figure out why you kept on figuring out that my neighborhood was fake. I never really did figure it out, but I think it is because you’re so good at seeing through people...at..seeing what is really there. It was a defense mechanism that you had as a kid, but you’ve used it to your advantage almost 800 times in my neighborhood. I knew that you would pick up on the fact that ‘what do we owe to each other’ was a loaded statement, and of course, I was right. Because I know you.”
“Why do you keep on pushing me towards Chidi, Michael? I mean, yeah, Chidi is a natural disaster and is hot in a surprisingly not nerdy way, but, why?”
“You two work so well together, Eleanor. He always helped you.”
“He only did that because you told him to help me. You knew we would torture each other.” She gasps and points at Michael. “You’re the librarian! You’re the sexy librarian guy who told Chidi to say ‘yes to the next person who asks for his help.’ You did the same thing here on Earth as you did in the afterlife: you prompted Chidi to help me.”
“Yes.” He smirks. “Not my best Earth persona, but it was one of my favorites. You really think I’m sexy, Eleanor?”
“Don’t deflect, Michael.” She gives a toothy grin as she sees him visibly deflate. “But, this look ” she gestures to him, “is certainly working for me.”
“I wondered why you acted all defensively after your mom called me a ‘sexy, stretched out Alex Trebek.’”
They sip their iced teas in one-side comfortable silence. Eleanor notices that Michael is starting to be more calm and more grounded, but Eleanor’s mind is working overtime, trying to process all of the memories that she just watched, not only about that lizard (why didn’t she name it?!), but about Chidi, and Michael. Something still didn’t sit right with her. Like, so what, he came around and became a ‘reformed demon,” or something because of her. Who cares? She didn’t know what he was like before his neighborhood, so maybe he was always a weird demon; a loner, an outsider, obsessed with humanity and wanting to figure out what makes them tick, instead of putting a clock inside of their bodies, rewiring their neurons so the humans could listen to time ticking away forever, like she imagined other demons must do in the real Bad Place.
“Why was that pin everything you’ve ever wanted?” Eleanor muses.
Michael feels his stomach drop to his shoes. “Excuse me?”
“You know, that pin that Shawn gave you for your efforts in the design and execution of your neighborhood in reboot 802. Why was it so important to you?”
“Well, I spent a long time, many hundreds of years, working to get it. I had thought that I wanted the recognition. The praise.”
“The acceptance?”
“Yes. I was so surprised that Shawn had given it to me because it is a huge honor in the department that I used to work in when I was in The Bad Place. I had finally become a member of the senior staff and had proof of my labors! I was terrified that I was going to be found out when he was in my office.”
“Because you had just left seeing me?”
“Yeah. And even though demons can’t read minds, I was so shaken up by our conversation that I was a bit unsteady and disheveled when Shawn told me that I had been promoted.”
Eleanor let his words wash over her, like a warm breeze. “I still can’t believe I got to you that much, Michael.”
Michael takes a long sip of his iced tea to gather his thoughts. “Eleanor, I need to show you another memory. You want to know why I keep on pushing you towards Chidi? You want to know how much you got to me? You want to know how I know that I have free will and even if it isn’t the coolest thing I’ve ever done, it still proves my ‘I have free will’ point?”
“I don’t know what has gotten into you cause you’re starting to talk like a crazy person, but,” she puts the earbuds in her ears, “hit me.”
Michael looks at her one last time before initiating the memory sequence and swallows the lump in his throat.
Eleanor sees herself wearing some film noir, Mad Men-esque business suit with film noir pinned hair. A portal is the main focal point and Eleanor assumes the portal is a way out of The Bad Place. There’s tension and fear in her eyes. Michael is in front of her and she knows that he’s trying to keep it together as Shawn notices the two of them. Everything is moving slow; she guesses it is because Michael intentionally slowed the sequence down when he loaded it. The Michael in front of her says something about how he solved the trolley problem and Eleanor doesn’t know what he means by that. Even after Michael explains himself, she is still lost and uneasy. She’s now standing at the threshold of the portal. He takes a step up, looks at her in a way that she's never been looked at before, and pins his Senior Staff Pin to her outfit, and then, despite her protesting, pushes her into the portal and as she goes through it, she screams when she sees Shawn grab Michael forcefully.
Back on Earth, Eleanor is quiet; her shoulders slump forward, her eyes wide, confused, and wet. She swallows a lump in the back of her throat. “You...you sacrificed yourself for me. Why, Michael?”
“Because I have free will, Eleanor.”
“No, it is more than that, Michael. My outfit complimented yours. My hair looked like demon horns. We looked like we belonged together. I would put money on it that Shawn thought the same thing when he saw us standing near the portal. You were terrified, but you acted selflessly. You were so decimated to realize that death is truly an option for you, that you can be retired, right after you joined Team Cockroach and you just saved my life so easily. Like it was the easiest decision in the world. Like someone offered you the choice between something gross and free money, or someone offered the choice between death and everything you've ever wanted. I know what changed between your death freakout and that portal scene, Michael.”
Michael clenches his jaw and looks up at her with pleading eyes.
“I was everything you've ever wanted. That's why it was so easy for you to do that for me; you didn't care what happened to you cause I would be safe.The pin didn't matter to you. I did.”
“You still do, Eleanor. And, you still are everything I’ve ever wanted, Eleanor. I kept on pushing you towards Chidi because you compliment each other. You help each other out. You support one another. Your happiness is more important. Your life is more important.”
“If anything, it sounds like I’m the Chidi, to your Eleanor, Michael. You came to me for help, and I gave you help. I was the only one of us humans who trusted you, because I knew you were on our side, on Team Cockroach’s side, and you also pulled another classic Shellstrop move.”
Tiny beads of sweat dot Michael’s forehead. He makes a conscious effort not to try and wipe them off with this hand and lick his hand. “What might that be, Eleanor?” He asks, shakily.
“You were too afraid to say the real words so you let ‘I just solved the Trolley Problem’ serve as a replacement. Acknowledging your feelings scares you because if you acknowledge them, they become real; they’re not just swimming in your subconscious or whatever. Hell, it scares me, which is why this whole ‘afterlife memory’ thing is just a lot to process. Being vulnerable sucks.” She puts a hand on his shoulder. “Michael, I need you to say what you actually meant to say then. I imagine it is something that is still true, on account of everything else that has happened in this Earthly timeline.”
‘I can’t- I shouldn’t...You don’t-”
“Michael,” she takes both of his hands in her hands and smiles at the size difference between their hands, “you’re in a safe space; you can tell me.”
Michael looks at her and wishes he could still view her in nine dimensions. Maintaining eye contact, blue eyes linked up with blue eyes, he whispers, “I love you, Eleanor.”
Eleanor feels a wave of peace and calm, like being covered with a thick, warm blanket. “Eleanor, I’ve loved you for so long; I just didn’t know what the word was. I loved you a little bit more every single time you figured out my puzzle that my neighborhood was really the bad place. I loved you a little bit more when I tried to figure you out, and to see if I had missed anything in that freaky little noodle of yours, which is something that happened like 10 times; I wasted 10 reboots just ranting to your face about you just so I could blow off some steam. I loved you when I had the idea that if I saved you, the other humans might stand a fighting chance against the Judge and despite the fact that you had figured out my scheme so many times, the thought of someone sacrificing themself for you never once crossed your mind. I loved you when I touched the record of your life when Janet and I were still in the afterlife and you four were on Earth; your life was wrapped around my arm because I missed you so much. It was the closest I got to you until I risked a lot to come down to Earth again as your bartender, and then the closest until we talked while at Tahani’s party. I didn’t want to leave you; I wanted to keep talking to you, even if it was something mundane or stupid. I still love you so much that I know in my...heart that you belong with Chidi because there’s no way that you’ll ever have feelings for me. You both make each other better and, I’m just a monster, Eleanor. I know I’m no longer torturing humans, but I tortured you four for 300 years! Prior to you four, I spent millenia doing the same thing, but in far cruder ways. Ever since I can remember, I wanted to do something that is more human, and letting someone go when you love them is the most human thing I can think of right now.”
Eleanor pulls him in closer, which is admittedly, difficult on stools, and wraps her tiny arms around his broad chest, burying her head into his tie. “There are nice monsters, Michael; you’re one of them, demon buddy.”
Michael wrapped his arms around Eleanor and Eleanor gasps at his touch, his warmth. Eleanor looked up at the one per-no, entity that has ever truly, passionately loved her and felt that same wave of peace and calm. She didn’t need to acknowledge her own feelings, whatever they might be, at this moment, because that could happen later. At least in this timeline, she didn’t feel much of anything for Chidi, despite Michael’s constant cheerleading for them to be together. She understood why he kept on doing that, and she ignored how much it bothered her that he kept on doing that. Right, now, Michael was the only thing that mattered to her; she always did love looking out for number one.